Compare Sea Floor Spreading With The Formation Of Mid Ocean Ridges

Mid ocean ridges occur along divergent plate boundaries where new ocean floor is created as the earth s tectonic plates spread apart.

Compare sea floor spreading with the formation of mid ocean ridges. Sea floor spreading is the process where two ocean plates move apart from each other. Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. As the plates separate molten rock rises to the seafloor producing enormous volcanic eruptions of basalt. The rate of seafloor spreading determines the morphology of the crest of the mid ocean ridge and its width in an ocean basin.

The mid ocean ridge is an area that is mountainess and the spreading is slower in the atlantic but in the pacific the mid ocean ridge is. It typically has a depth of 2 600 meters and rises about two kilometers above the deepest portion of an ocean basin. Mid ocean ridges are underwater mountain ranges that typically occur at the center of an area of sea floor spreading. Yes mid ocean ridges an sea floor spreading are linked.

This feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a divergent plate boundary. Further a correlation has been found between global spreading rates and the transgression and regression of ocean waters onto the continents. Because this cooling is a function of age slow spreading ridges such as the mid atlantic ridge are narrower than faster spreading ridges such as the east pacific rise. A mid ocean ridge is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics.

The mid ocean ridge is where the seafloor spreading occurs in which tectonic plates large slabs of earth s lithosphere split apart from each other. The mid atlantic ridge for instance separates the north american plate from the eurasian plate and the south american plate from the african plate. The production of new seafloor and oceanic lithosphere results from mantle upwelling in respo. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.

The rate at which new oceanic lithosphere is added to each tectonic plate on either side of a mid ocean ridge is the spreading half rate and is equal to half of the spreading rate. Seafloor spreading is a geologic process where there is a gradual addition of new oceanic crust in the ocean floor through a volcanic activity while moving the older rocks away from the mid oceanic ridge. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow.